Inflating item levels - 2.1bil bosses by end of expansion

At this rate blizzard is going to hit the health cap 2.14bil before the end of the expansion. Heroic elegon has 1bil health (502), sha of fear has 1.6bil health (509) and we're going up to 540-550 (Ra-den probably drops "elite") or so with the next patch and then in 5.3 we're apparently getting item upgrade back to see another 8 item levels on top of that.

So I'm guessing we're going to see very few bosses with damage increasing mechanics, and the last tier will have a boss that dies, and comes back or heals. Next expansion blizzard is going to either have to do something clever or go back to their idea of stat reduction across the board. Should be interesting to see.

amount of hp and current ilevel doesn't really matter in regards to power ups on encounters - they can always pump the boss or put some kind of limitation(like only 10 people can attack at a time) or some sort.

id be more worried with people going over 1 mil HP at the end of the xp.

How do you know that the code of the game does not allow health higher than 2.14 billion? I am not doubting you, this is just the first time I have heard of it and I am curious how we came to know this.

Yeah nearly 100 ivl difference in 2 raid tiers (463 - 550 (estimated)). I have a feeling blizzard is intentionally massively inflating Ilvls this expansion just so to minimize the player outcry and opposition for when they put in the Ilvl crunch next expansion.

Or they will just assign an extra interger to handle the health overflow. It would literally only require 1 extra CPU cycle per health check. Performance loss for the average computer would be about a millionth of a percent.

Yeah nearly 100 ivl difference in 2 raid tiers (463 - 550 (estimated)). I have a feeling blizzard is intentionally massively inflating Ilvls this expansion just so to minimize the player outcry and opposition for when they put in the Ilvl crunch next expansion.

with the numbers we reach atm, plain +xx amount of itemlevel is too much/not enough is wrong. you cant compare plain numbers if the values are different.
so even if we double the amount, as its "only" a +5 level xpac, the itemlevel difference seems still quite as expected. nothing out of order, usual thing as the numbers get higher, that the plain amount gets higher in order to keep up with the percentage.

Last edited by Discodelya; 2013-01-24 at 09:12 AM.
Reason: fixed due to wrong ilvl of entry raid @ mop / i suck at copypasting numbers

Yeah nearly 100 ivl difference in 2 raid tiers (463 - 550 (estimated)). I have a feeling blizzard is intentionally massively inflating Ilvls this expansion just so to minimize the player outcry and opposition for when they put in the Ilvl crunch next expansion.

While a bit of a tinfoil-hat-ish theory at first glance, this might actually be correct, i can't find another way to explain Blizz going for such insane stat-inflation otherwise (Not after almost stat-crunching in MoP-release because of overly big stats/DPS/HPS), if they can make the majority of the players complain about hideous level of stats they can implement their cherished stat-crunch with way less opposition (And then mess it up somehow of course :P )

with the numbers we reach atm, plain +xx amount of itemlevel is too much/not enough is wrong. you cant compare plain numbers if the values are different.
so even if we double the amount, as its "only" a +5 level xpac, the itemlevel difference seems still quite as expected. nothing out of order, usual thing as the numbers get higher, that the plain amount gets higher in order to keep up with the percentage.

we will have another raid tier or 2 in MoP, so the 550 would be analogous to ulduar or maybe ToGC in wrath (232/264), not the 284 of heroic ICC.

with the numbers we reach atm, plain +xx amount of itemlevel is too much/not enough is wrong. you cant compare plain numbers if the values are different.
so even if we double the amount, as its "only" a +5 level xpac, the itemlevel difference seems still quite as expected. nothing out of order, usual thing as the numbers get higher, that the plain amount gets higher in order to keep up with the percentage.

I could be wrong but I believe the 5.0 raid tier began at an ilevel of 476 not 463.

How do you know that the code of the game does not allow health higher than 2.14 billion? I am not doubting you, this is just the first time I have heard of it and I am curious how we came to know this.

I'm guessing his (reasonable) assumption is that boss health is stored as a signed int variable, which goes from -2,147,483,647 to 2,147,483,647. In other words, max boss health = 2,14 billion. Even if it's stored as an unsigned int for some reason, it would be postponing the problem to around 4,3 billion.

Of course, Blizzard could've had a moment of foresight back when this was built and put health into a long or something, which would mean we won't see the cap any time soon, as an unsigned long foes from −9,223,372,036,854,775,808 to 9,223,372,036,854,775,807.

I'm guessing his (reasonable) assumption is that boss health is stored as a signed int variable, which goes from -2,147,483,647 to 2,147,483,647. In other words, max boss health = 2,14 billion. Even if it's stored as an unsigned int for some reason, it would be postponing the problem to around 4,3 billion.

Of course, Blizzard could've had a moment of foresight back when this was built and put health into a long or something, which would mean we won't see the cap any time soon, as an unsigned long foes from −9,223,372,036,854,775,808 to 9,223,372,036,854,775,807.

we will have another raid tier or 2 in MoP, so the 550 would be analogous to ulduar or maybe ToGC in wrath (232/264), not the 284 of heroic ICC.

we wont probably reach 600 (which would be, if we'd double the amount ~50%), think we will end up at 580~ maybe 58x ilvl for the last tier (i dont expect a fourth tier of content, so..). still seems quite comparable to the other addons 25-45% should be the range, am I wrong or do you all just want to see something "wrong" when there isnt? You also have to keep in mind, that the ratings per percent values dropped a lot. Plain "woa +1000 rating" arent comparable to the numbers back then.
that the numbers have to be fixed in order to avoid 3478327847392847893 damage per spell is out of question, the itemlevel inflation is a problem which never really existed. every addon out of every corner they came and said "woa look at those items, this addon is broken, too much inflation"

Originally Posted by Xeraxis

I could be wrong but I believe the 5.0 raid tier began at an ilevel of 476 not 463.

I'm guessing his (reasonable) assumption is that boss health is stored as a signed int variable, which goes from -2,147,483,647 to 2,147,483,647. In other words, max boss health = 2,14 billion. Even if it's stored as an unsigned int for some reason, it would be postponing the problem to around 4,3 billion.

Of course, Blizzard could've had a moment of foresight back when this was built and put health into a long or something, which would mean we won't see the cap any time soon, as an unsigned long foes from −9,223,372,036,854,775,808 to 9,223,372,036,854,775,807.

Or it's possible that the game engine was tweaked to use 64 bit intergers since almost nobody has a 32 bit CPU anymore.

I'm guessing his (reasonable) assumption is that boss health is stored as a signed int variable, which goes from -2,147,483,647 to 2,147,483,647. In other words, max boss health = 2,14 billion. Even if it's stored as an unsigned int for some reason, it would be postponing the problem to around 4,3 billion.

Of course, Blizzard could've had a moment of foresight back when this was built and put health into a long or something, which would mean we won't see the cap any time soon, as an unsigned long foes from −9,223,372,036,854,775,808 to 9,223,372,036,854,775,807.

which means that instead of speaking about bosses with 2.14B HP, we have a different problem. you have K for thousand, M for million, B for Billion and T for trillion. but the next step AND the step after that both start with QU (quadrillion and quintillion). you might call quadrillion Q, but what will you call quintillion? QQ?

"okay, so this boss has 9 QQ HP. don't forget to use your 1M Flasks and 500K food buffs. thank god everyone migrated to 64 bit PCs a while ago."

Currently only reading the Funny Pictures Megathread because the rest of the forums is filled with piss, whiners and pissed whiners.

which means that instead of speaking about bosses with 2.14B HP, we have a different problem. you have K for thousand, M for million, B for Billion and T for trillion. but the next step AND the step after that both start with QU (quadrillion and quintillion). you might call quadrillion Q, but what will you call quintillion? QQ?

"okay, so this boss has 9 QQ HP. don't forget to use your 1M Flasks and 500K food buffs. thank god everyone migrated to 64 bit PCs a while ago."

If you have to remind your raid team to use the current expansions flasks and stat food don't worry, you won't be raiding at that point anyways.

Blizzard have said multiple times "We know what gear levels we will have by the end of expansion don't worry about scaling, damage ect it will be fine" I think they know what they are doing and already fixed the 2.14 health cap before MoP beta because they already tested internally how players would be doing with Ilvl 800, 2000 ect and knew the kinda damage people will be doing.

They managed to remove the 2,14 gold it would be the same thing again with HP levels